Signaling Safety To Our Nervous System
Signaling safety to our nervous system is a mindfulness practice of noticing what is here. What am I experiencing right now? Do I feel safe in my body right now? That's a good question to pay attention to.
As we get started with any practice, we start with what's here. One of the ways that we might notice is through our eyes. Look around the room that you're in or the location you're in and look behind you as well. We're letting our eyes notice.
Is there anything here that seems dangerous that we need to be on the alert for? Is there anything actually alarming? What does that feel like to look around and see? Actually, no, it's okay. There's nothing here that's alarming.
We could also add in the safety side. What is it that's nurturing for you as you look around the location that you're in? Our homes provide safety from the elements. We have built this sense of safety in our environment. It's never perfect safety, but is it safe enough that we could look around and realize that very likely there's no threat here right now. I could take a few deep breaths. I could let my body soften.
Our nervous system pays attention to our senses. That's one of the reasons why we use our eyes. If our eyes take in that there's no danger here, it's a direct communication to the nervous system.
We use our sense of touch, putting a hand on our heart or holding our own hands or noticing that our bodies are supported in the environment on a floor or a chair or bed. We can feel that.
One of the other senses is our hearing. Is there anything that signals danger in the sounds in your area right now? Is there anything that's signaling safety? For many people, I hear that my voice creates a feeling of it's okay to relax. It's soft. It's warm. People have associations with my voice, with relaxing and feeling safer.That is a positive cycle that happens. Listen to the practice here.
Our nervous system is set up to alert us right away if there's something going on that's dangerous. It doesn't pay attention so much to what's safe, but we can notice that, we can focus on that. That's very helpful.
What are the visuals, the sounds, the touch that help me to know or experience that I'm safe right now?
Our nervous system has a negativity bias. It's far more interested in what could be a potential threat. It's one of the ways that it keeps us alive. And it uses history as evidence in its assessment.
A lot of the sense of, I'm not safe right now, has nothing to do with the present moment. It has to do with thoughts about the future - something could happen that's going to be not good. It might be dangerous, but it also might be something I don't want to have happen, pain, suffering or loss.
Part of what's going on in the mind is we have that predictive quality. We take all the evidence from the past, all of our past associations, and we try to predict what might happen in the future. Our thoughts of the past have associations of danger.
We come back to our visual sense and notice the images in our mind. It's scary to watch videos of alarming events. Our brain doesn't know that 100 years ago moving pictures were invented. It doesn't know that what we bring in through our eyes or what we imagine is not true. It's not happening in our area. It's not an immediate threat. Until 100 years ago, everything that we saw as a moving picture was something that was 50, 100 or a few hundred feet away.
When we have images that are alarming, we could put them on the wall on the other side of the room, just like we're looking at the image in a frame. If you're feeling hypervigilant or tense, and that some of it seems to be image-related, that's one way to work with that.
Once you get the image in a frame on the wall, then our eyes can see, oh, that's happening over there. We're more aware in our nervous system that we're looking at an image, a thought. Then take your eyes around the empty space on the outside of the frame a couple times in one direction, and a couple times in the other direction. When we look back at that image again, sometimes it's faded, sometimes it doesn't feel as real. And one of the reasons for that is because we've let our brain know that's an image that we’re looking at, it's not something happening right now.
With alarming images, we often have an associated sensation or energy in our body.
What's happening in your body right now, and how are you interpreting that? Oftentimes people have a feeling of I'm ready for action in the body, a kind of jitteriness. If we're in more of a freeze response, it might be a dullness or a heaviness. We might have energy in a part of our body.
It's common to have a bracing-for-trouble energy in the back of our neck, shoulders, and upper back. We might have kind of a crawling anxiety or fear in our belly and our gut, or a heaviness in the heart area. We are aware of these sensations on a nervous system level, even if we're not consciously aware by paying attention to them.
Sensations are always signaling something. Bring your shoulders up a couple times on the inhale and on the exhale, let them release. And as you're doing that, see if you could let the shoulders, the large muscles of the upper back soften.
You could turn your head again, look behind you. Let your eyes see - oh, in fact, there's nothing behind me. I don't need to brace myself, I could allow my shoulders to move around, I could allow my body to open a bit. Maybe I could even take a few deeper breaths.
One of the ways that we have this experience of, I'm not safe, is that we have sensations or energies in our body that have associated thoughts and memories. By themselves, the sensations signal something, but then we're very often caught in a train of thought.
Often that train of thought is worst case scenarios or catastrophic thinking, generating a stream of - What if this happens? Or What if that happens? And each image is more alarming. Part of that is because our brain doesn't know the difference between what we vividly imagine and what is actually happening in this moment in time.
What we're worried about might not happen, but it might. It often doesn't, but it might. And the more we have solid evidence from the past, the more likely we are to feel that's very likely to happen and that increases our hypervigilance.
Our mind-body are not separate things. It's all working together. What we're looking for here are points where we can enter in and signal safety. One of the ways to do that is to notice the sensations in my body. Could I notice them like a witness?
You have a heaviness in the chest, for example. Does it go through your whole body? Is it a very specific kind of sensation? Does it feel like it's dark? Does it feel like there's something pressing on your chest or is it more diffuse? We could look at these sensations like we would describe them to a scientist. We notice the edge of the sensation. We notice, is it moving or is it still? And often when we look at it that way, we can then go into an inquiry around what is this associated with.
Right now we're gathering information. Very often what will happen when we're focusing on a sensation is that the associated thoughts start to come forward. We could start to bring our awareness into putting it on the wall on the other side of the room in that frame, or we might just look and see. As long as we can remain aware that we're not in danger right now because of that image, then it's helpful to look.
We've got sensations in the body. We have thoughts in the mind. We have our breath. Most people will say, I notice that when I get really upset, I hold my breath.
We don't really want to breathe in again. We breathe in and it feels a bit overwhelming sometimes. When we've got some breath, we might not want to give it away.
This habit of holding our breath and the raggedness of our breath is a strong signal to the nervous system that there's something to be alarmed about, because normally we don't breathe that way when we feel safe. If we've had a lot of trauma in the past and we've developed a habit or a pattern of breathing that way, we keep signaling danger. Be patient and kind as you’re working with breath. As you begin to feel safer, this will be easier and feel less threatening.
Our body breathing diaphragmatically is how we're meant to breathe. What that feels like in our body is that as we breathe in, our stomach area expands or rises. And as we breathe out, the stomach area softens and comes back towards the spine.
When we're holding our breath, we have tight muscles in the chest and stomach. Women especially are encouraged to suck in our gut. Don't let a stomach show. If you have a habit from that, you'll probably be breathing more in your chest because you've been blocking the natural softness of the belly and of the rhythm of the diaphragmatic breath. Notice how you're breathing and what parts of your body are moving as you breathe.
Ideally, we have a smooth, even breath, about the same length on the inhale as the exhale. If we're doing a relaxation practice with breathing, we might be breathing out longer on the exhale, but it's smooth. It's continuous. There's ease in our breath.
Breathe in for two or three seconds if you can relax and let that happen, then breathe out for up to six or something like that if you can still remain relaxed. A practice of cyclic sighing can be a helpful reset.
What we're signaling to our nervous system with a smooth diaphragmatic breath is that it's safe to breathe. When we're afraid, sometimes we breathe in and then we hold our breath. We don't want anyone to notice that we're here. That doesn't feel safe.
We could experience through practice that it’s okay to have some movement in our body and have a smooth inhale and exhale, and a bit of a sound sometimes in the breath. We're signaling to our nervous system it's safe enough to breathe. Whereas before, if we're holding our breath or if we're breathing up in the chest, what we're signaling is there's danger here.
We might do that all day long for years because our nervous system has developed this experience of - there's danger here. Now with this simple practice of smooth continuous diaphragmatic breath, we can begin to signal that our body is safe.
We don't signal that by thinking about it. We signal it by doing it. Notice your breath. As you're breathing in, notice the coolness of the inhale through your nostrils. As you're breathing out, let your body soften in the muscles of your stomach. Our whole body wants to soften on the out breath. Focus on that for a bit, linking the exhalation with softening in our body.
Once you're breathing out, you might soften your forehead, eyebrows, and eyes. Focus on that for a few breaths. You could move your lower jaw around and loosen up through the hinges of your jaw. Many people hold a lot of tension in the jaw. Let your teeth come to rest so they're not touching top to bottom.
Let your sense of speech also be at rest. Relax your throat, the sides of your neck, back of your neck, into your upper back. Notice if you're bracing yourself at all.
Threats that come from behind are more difficult to know. This is part of the reason why we might look behind and let our eyes reassure our nervous system. As you're breathing out, let your muscles soften through the upper back and through the chest.
Notice your arms and legs. Let a wave of stillness or softness come through the sides of your neck and shoulders, down through your arms, hands, fingers, fingertips. Notice your legs, from your lower belly down through your hips, thighs, lower legs, your feet and toes, your heels.
For a moment, let your body be still in the sense of knowing - I don't have to jump into action right now. You might stretch your arms or legs, or might move a little then come into stillness.
There are all kinds of ways that we can signal to the nervous system that we're safe enough. The mind might still be generating ideas and thoughts about things. Sometimes we're really chewing on something or ruminating on something from the past. It's stuck in our mind.
We could use the practice of putting images in a frame across the room. We could notice the connection between our thoughts and the sensations in our body. The important thing is to notice.
What is it that's giving me this sense that it's not safe right now?
Very often, it's some kind of thought about the past or the future that's linked or associated with sensations, energy in our body.
We can't change the way our nervous system works. Our nervous system has a negativity bias. It remembers everything that's ever happened that was dangerous, including things that happened when we were a child. With a lot of those things, although they were harmful or scary then, we have a different experience now as an adult.
We can move away from them. We can protect ourselves in different ways. Those things that were alarming to us as a child are embedded in our assessment mechanism. Knowing how this works helps us to become more accurate in our nervous system assessment of present moment safety.
We're not trying to say that these things are not harmful or dangerous. They often are and were. We are noticing - right now in this moment, what is my level of safety? Which ones of the dangers are present moment or what could I let go into the background for a moment as I relax and become more aware? Right now, I'm safe. I'm safe enough to breathe.
Taking our attention away from the events in the world and in our daily life and with people we care about isn't selfish or self-centered. It's a practical way to build a stronger nervous system and a more accurate assessment of safety, and we can then bring that resilience and strength into our life.
We're not pretending that things aren't hard. They often are really hard. We're just looking to make our perception of this moment in time more accurate and open up some space for ease. We're looking around and seeing - I could really appreciate the sunshine this morning where I am. If we're wrapped up in the past or the future, we don’t have the ability to look around and appreciate what's here.
Then we bring this strong, open heart into the rest of our day. It's safe enough to breathe, safe enough to relax. It's safe enough to go off duty and lower our level of vigilance.
Ironically, this is the best way to protect ourselves - be here in this present moment, accurate in what we're assessing - and to bring more ease and joy into our daily life.